His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [1]
On September 21, 1983, Frank Sinatra sued to stop this book from being published before a word was ever written. He filed suit in California seeking two million dollars in punitive damages from me for presuming to write without his authorization. He claimed that he and he alone, or someone he anointed, could write his life story, but no one else was allowed to do so. As he stated in his complaint: “Sinatra has, on numerous occasions, informed his friends and publicly stated that at such time as he decides is appropriate, he will ‘set the record straight’ as to many aspects of his life.”
He further claimed that I was misrepresenting myself as his official biographer to get “inside knowledge of the private aspects or events of [his] life.” Asserting that I was misappropriating his name and likeness for commercial purposes, he asked the court to issue an injunction.
Fortunately a national coalition of writers’ groups rose up to protest this action, claiming that Frank Sinatra’s lawsuit against me was an assault upon all writers’ constitutionally protected freedom of expression and should be dismissed on its face. In a joint statement they said: “The apparent goal behind Sinatra’s filing of this suit is to scare Ms. Kelley away from her investigation and, ultimately, to force her to scrap the book. Abuses of the judicial system such as these pose a serious threat to all writers.”
Calling Sinatra’s lawsuit “a chilling example of how a powerful public figure using money and influence can orchestrate what the public shall know about him,” the coalition focused public attention on the rights guaranteed to all Americans under the First Amendment, even those people not approved of by Mr. Sinatra.
For one year, Sinatra pursued his lawsuit. His allegations proved groundless, and on September 19, 1984, he dropped the matter.
The writers groups applauded his action. “The court’s dismissal of this meritless suit—at the request of Mr. Sinatra—is a victory for all writers and the public,” stated their press release. “It reaffirms the right of the public to be informed about the lives of influential public persons whether or not they approve of the writer and his or her approach.”
This coalition, which included the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Sigma Delta Chi (Society of Professional Journalists), the Newspaper Guild, PEN, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union, the Council of Writers Organizations, and Washington Independent Writers, mobilized quickly and effectively to offer their support. Without them, I could never have written this book.
I am also grateful for the editorial support I received from the New York Daily News and the Baltimore Sun as well as Jules Feiffer’s brilliant cartoon in The Village Voice. Joseph Foote and Ronald Goldfarb in The Washington Post, Liz Smith in the New York Daily News, and William Safire in The New York Times wrote eloquently that censorship, no matter how you dress it up, is constitutionally impermissible. Such distinguished commentary deploring Mr. Sinatra’s attempt at prior restraint emphasized how important the press considers its right to cover public figures without restriction. As the Baltimore Sun stated: “If all the public can learn of the person is what the person himself wants it to learn, then ours will become a very closed and ignorant society, unable to correct its ills, quite unlike what the drafters and subsequent generations of defenders of the free-speech First Amendment had in mind.”
During this time I received the good counsel of several lawyers, including my father, William V. Kelley, his law partner, Duane Swinton, and his former associate, Irene Ringwood, of Witherspoon, Kelley, Davenport & Toole in Spokane, Washington; my personal attorney, Benjamin L. Zelenko of Landis, Cohen, Rauh and Zelenko in Washington, D.C.; and my California attorneys, William W. Vaughn and Robert C. Vanderet of O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles.
To research my subject as thoroughly as possible,